


Eight Candles

by innerbrat



Category: Batwoman (Comic), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Backstory, Family, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, comic continuity is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerbrat/pseuds/innerbrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight times Bette Kane lit the menorah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eight Candles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveronthetree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveronthetree/gifts).



> This was an awesome prompt. I hadn't read much of Flamebird in Teen Titans so I had to break out my research skills, and two things stuck out for me: 1) her parents never seem to show up and 2) a lot is made of how she's never 'suffered' like the superheroes who have lost parents or other family members. So that's kind of where I went with this.
> 
> Many many thanks to my betas: rushin-doll for canon, and ryfkah for educating me about the many different Hanukkah traditions.

**First Candle.**

When Mary Elizabeth Kane was four years old, her Uncle Jake and Auntie Gabi came to spend the holidays with her family in Los Angeles. Uncle Jake was the brother of Mary's dad, and like him came from Gotham City on the East Coast. He and Auntie Gabi were soldiers, though, and moved wherever the army told them to live. So it was very important to Mary's dad that his brother was able to spend Hanukkah with them for once. Mary's Mom and the rest of the family in California were Christian and Mary was used to Christmas, but her dad and Uncle Jake's family were Jewish, so this year all the Kanes were having Hanukkah together, in Mary's case for the first time.

The grown-ups spent most of the day sitting in the living room talking about old times, while Mary played with Jake and Gabi's two daughters. They were identical twin sisters and at eleven, were much older than Mary, so sometimes they got more involved in playing with each other than with her.

But when Mary started practicing handstands against the wall of her bedroom, Beth got interested and followed suit. She flipped up on her hands and walked a few, strong steps. Mary watched for a few seconds, astounded, then tried to do the same. She fell down as soon as she tried to lift her hand, and the twins both looked at her apprehensively, expecting the child to start crying.

“I want to do that,” she explained, and tried again. And again. On the fourth try, Kate grabbed her feet and held them up.

“You're swaying too much,” she said, and held Mary's feet gently as she took first one, than two steps forward on shaking hands.

“No fair, Kate,” Beth said, “you're doing it for her.”

“I'm not,” said Kate, “she's doing it herself. And she'll be walking without me before we're done.”

Kate was determined to keep her word, making Mary try again, and again and again until her hands hurt and she really did want to cry, but she didn't want to make the twins think she was a silly little girl and give up on her.

It was Beth who came to her rescue.

“I'm bored, Kate. Let's do something else.”

“You do something else. I'm helping Mary walk on her hands.”

“She's had enough, Kate, Stop it.”

Mary was never sure afterwards whether Beth did think Mary was tired, or whether she was really just bored, but she was grateful anyway, and nodded determinedly at Kate. “I want to do something else.”

“Fine,” said Kate, pouting slightly. “What do you want to do? It's too cold to play outside and it's going to rain again.”

Beth glanced at Mary, who was rubbing life back into her arms, and decided to choose something quiet.

“Get the dreidel out, Mary.”

Mary fetched that, and Kate fetched a bowl of peanuts to divide between them. They played for a while, chatting quietly between spins.

“We might move to Belgium,” Beth said.

Mary tried to remember if she knew where Belgium was. “Is that in Africa?”

“No, silly,” Kate said. “It's in Europe.” Her tone was curt, and her eyes were narrowed at Beth, who hadn't seemed to notice.

“Dad's up for a promotion,” she said. “If he gets it, he's going to work for NATO. That's a big organization with people from all over the world, and it keeps peace...” she stopped finally when she looked up from the dreidel to see the way Kate was hugging her knees.

“Be quiet, Elizabeth, I don't want to talk about it.”

Mary was distracted from the talk of Europe and NATO and turned to stare at Beth. “Your name is Beth.”

“It's Elizabeth, really,” Beth explained. “Like Kate's is Katherine. Beth for short.”

“But Elizabeth's _my_ name,” said Mary. “Mary Elizabeth Kane.”

“Well, it's Beth's too,” Kate put in, who seemed pleased to be talking about something other than her dad's move.

Mary was fascinated. She knew about names that weren't names – there was a girl at preschool called Becky, whose name was Rebecca – but she hadn't realized that Kate and Beth were Katherine and Elizabeth.

“I want to be for short.”

“Well, you can't,” said Kate. “Mary doesn't go for short.”

“Mary doesn't go what?” Mary's mom was standing in the door, looking down at the three of them with some amusement, Auntie Gabi standing a little behind her. Mary scrambled to her feet and ran towards her mom.

“Mommy,” she said, “I want a 'for short' name. Does Mary go for short?”

“Well,” Mom said thoughtfully, “Mary is short for 'Margaret,' really...”

“But that's not my name!” Mary said. “I want to be for short for Mary Elizabeth.”

“Hmmm. I suppose Elizabeth has shortened variations...”

“She can't be Beth!” Beth said quickly. “I'm Beth.”

“Liz?” That was Aunt Gabi's suggestion.

“What about Betty?” said Kate.

Beth pulled a face. “Betty's a stupid name. Are you Kathy? Or _Katie_?”

“Not Katie. _Kate_.”

“Bette.” Mary had decided. “Mom, I want to be Bette for short.”

Mom smoothed Mary's hair back from her face. “Okay, we'll see what your daddy says. Come along now, girls. It's time to light the menorah.”

Mary, who now was Bette for short, lit the first candle that year, with Beth holding her on the chair so she didn't fall or drop the shammas. Before she went to bed that night, Bette ran over to her new namesake and gave her a big hug.

“Are you mad that I'm Bette and you're Beth?”

“No,” said Beth. “I'm really honored. Do right by the name, Bette, okay?”

“I promise.”

 **Second Candle**.

The best thing about Los Angeles was that even in the winter it was never too cold to practice tennis. Bette was only eight, but she was determined to be ranked #1 in the Southern California under-10s tennis next year, and this meant that even out of season she was out on the court until it was too dark to see, practicing as hard as she could. If her parents wouldn't drive her to the club, she went out into their garden and served balls across the lawn.

Her dad found her there one night, squinting in the fading light at a string that had finally worn through. He watched from the back door as she sat down hard where she was standing and started picking at her strings. Then he disappeared back into the house for a few minutes.

“Hey, Bette.”

When he came back, he was holding a large flat present in his hands, wrapped in jolly tree-and-holly Christmas paper. She looked at the present, and then up at her dad. Mom was standing in the doorway behind him, watching with a smile on her face.

“It's not Christmas yet.”

“No,” he acknowledged. “But it is the first day of Hanukkah, and we thought you could have this present now.”

Bette dropped her racket and ran to him, snatching the box out of his hands.

“Do you mean we get to have Hanukkah presents too?”

“Well,” Dad looked over his shoulder at Mom, and they both shrugged. “Maybe this year.”

Bette had already torn the paper off the nondescript cardboard box, in which she found a brand new, high end tennis racket.

“Oh my gosh!” she shouted in delight. “This is a professional racket!.”

Her dad ruffled her hair. “Yes, it is, Sparky. For your blossoming career. Now come inside, and I'll get out the menorah.”

Bette lit every candle that Hanukkah, learning the prayers from her dad a line at a time until she could say both daily prayers by the eighth night. Her presents on the rest of the days were as follows: a reel of string; a stringing kit; a case of balls; a carrying case for her new racket; red and yellow grip tape; a dress to play in; and a personal towel.

By the end of the week, Bette had started trying to guess what her next present would be. She still couldn't guess the ball machine they snuck in for Christmas, or the decision over New Year's that her parents would be remodeling half of the back garden to make a court of her own to practice on. That would count for a year's worth of birthday, Hanukkah and Christmas presents, but it was most definitely worth it.

**Third Candle.**

As her mom was fond of saying: the room looked like a bomb had hit it. Or at least like a battle was about to be fought. The desk was a minefield of makeup. Lipsticks and nail varnishes lined up like soldiers in color coded ranks; blushes fought eyeshadows and mascara for space, all under the watchful eye of the largest portable mirror Bette could find. Flags formed of dresses and leotards and swimwear had been hoisted onto wall hooks, or laid out reverentially on the chairs and the ottoman. A flotilla of shoes guarded the skirting board. In one corner, a single suitcase spilled Bette's civilian clothing out into the room with decidedly un-military imprecision.

The room belonged to Kate. This was evident in the framed photo of her deceased mother and sister currently hiding behind a powder tower; in the high school gymnastics trophy being used to store hair pins; and in the poster for some heavy metal band Bette had never heard of. Kate was at West Point and wouldn't be home for another week. Instead, twelve-year old Bette was using her cousin's room as a base of operations for her assault on the Jabot Cosmetics Miss Twelve and Under crown.

Uncle Jake knocked on the door a couple of times, and called into the room to check her level of decency before he pushed the door open. Bette was sitting on Kate's bed checking the strings of her tennis racket. She grinned up at him when she saw his head peek in.

“Hey Uncle Jake. Sorry about the mess.”

He looked around and shook his head, smiling. “It's okay. I don't think it was ever this much like a teenage girl's room when Kate lived in it. I'm going to light the menorah, now, if you're interested.”

Bette had completely forgotten that it was going to be Hanukkah while she was out here. Eagerly, she bounced off the bed.

“Oh! Can I say the prayers?” she asked brightly, which prompted a warm smile in her uncle.

“Of course you can.”

Uncle Jake's menorah was bigger than the one Bette's dad kept and rarely used at home. It was silver, and like everything else in his apartment, polished to an immaculate shine. Bette thought her family's still had wax on it from four years ago.

Jake had pulled a coffee table near the window in the living room, and had the menorah set there, all candles in place and ready for the shammas to be lit. He handed Bette a box of matches, then held up a hand to wait.

“Hang on,” he said, and picked up the phone, hitting speed dial for Bette's own apartment in Van Noyes. It rang a couple of times before she could hear her dad answer.

“Bette's here,” said Jake, exchanging a couple of pleasantries before handing the phone over. “Got to do this with family,” he explained. Bette thought this was strange until she realized that Uncle Jake would be doing this without Kate for the first time, and he must still be lonely after losing Gabi and Beth years ago.

She didn't go back to her room afterwards, but helped Uncle Jake fry latkes for dinner and sat with him on the couch to watch the news. There had been a bank robbery in downtown Gotham this morning, foiled by the Batman and his new sidekick, and the news was running footage of the fight. It was Bette's first time in Gotham City, and the first time she'd stayed in any city with a superhero, even one as elusive as the Batman. She leaned forward, rested her head in her hands, and watched the item with interest.

It wasn't the Batman that interested her.

“Who's that?”

“That,” Jake said mildly, “is Robin. Batman's been hanging out with a kid recently. I guess it's good for his image as a good guy.”

Robin was definitely a kid, probably not much older than Bette herself. She watched as he executed a perfect somersault in the air and brought down two would-be bank robbers by throwing two projectiles in quick succession at their heads. His form was perfect. His legs were athletic.

Bette watched the footage again when they repeated the item at nine o'clock. Uncle Jake indulged her, with an amused smile.

Bette Kane was developing her first crush.

**Fourth Candle**

There were girls in Bette's high school freshman class who desperately wanted to marry a prince. They had elaborate but poorly thought out plans that involved going to college in England – not another European country, because they only spoke English – taking classes with a prince or a friend of a prince, and asking him for help with their classwork. None of them were actually making any effort to get into a British college, let alone working out which prince they were more likely to find. Their so-called plans were nothing more than daydreams.

Just like other girls Bette's age might be daydreaming about becoming a beauty queen or a tennis champion. Bette Kane did not have daydreams, she had plans that she followed through on. And her plan _now_ was to meet and marry Robin.

Step One: become a superhero in her own right.

Step Two: start a group just like the Teen Titans, but situated on the West Coast so she could actually get there.

Step Three: blow Robin away with her beauty queen good looks and her amazing skills as an athlete.

Step Four: marriage. Or possibly living together first.

Step four could wait, because it was much more important to work out the preceding steps first, particularly step one: become a superhero.

Telling her parents she was cramming for finals, Bette locked herself in her room and laid out her plans. It was, she realized, not going to be easy.

Getting into shape wasn't going to be too hard: there was tennis, obviously, and she was also by now Olympic level in gymnastics. Since Gotham, she had been studying Robin's moves: there was very little she'd seen him do that she couldn't mimic in the gym, and the rest would come with practice. But the fighting moves were going to be a challenge. She's already told her parents she wanted to take self-defense classes and signed up for karate and Jiu-Jitsu. Even with those skills, however, she realized she was going to have to add something else Robin used. She needed gadgets.

She used a whole page of her journal listing gadgets she was going to need: grappling hooks and wires, weapons, armor. Estimating the cost for them showed her she was going to have to ask Mom and Dad for an increase in her allowance, if she wanted to have a full kit by the time she went to college. Designing armor, however, led her to the much more exciting path of designing her costume.

It was like designing a costume for a beauty pageant, but a lot more interesting. Bette chose red, her favorite color, and yellow to match Robin's cape. A skirt would show off her legs and definitely make him notice her. She accessorized her design with flamethrower weapons, and started doodling a flame motif into her skirt.

She liked the fire theme; it seemed to fit her personality, Bette thought. She would be a bright, vibrant young superhero who would light up Robin's life and be impossible to ignore. It certainly fit her life so far: burning brightly at everything she did.

Doodling a raging fire into the corner of her notebook, Bette reflected that fires burn out after they've reached their hottest, and she wasn't sure if _that_ fit. She certainly didn't want to snuff out and turn to ashes. She wanted to keep burning strong in a long, successful career. Certainly she wanted to shine long enough that Robin, once he fell in love with her, would never stop loving her. She wanted to burn forever.

The doodle became a candle flame, and she stared at it. Fire that burns forever...

Bette started and looked up at the calendar over her desk. It was the third day of Hanukkah! She slammed her journal shut and hurried to the bedroom door, and to her father's study. A decision as life-changing as becoming a superhero needed all the blessing she could get, and she wasn't going to let a sign this auspicious go unmarked.

As she lit the candles with her dad, Bette watched the fire, and thought of fires that never go out, and of Robin, then of birds.

Phoenix? No, not heroic enough. And phoenixes die too often.

 _Flamebird_.

**Fifth Candle**

“I didn't know you were Jewish.”

The green eagle on the window sill was Garfield Logan, aka Beast Boy – no, Changeling, no Beast Boy again – and one of Bette's roommates. He could use the door if he wanted to, but sometimes Bette assumed he just found flying through the window more convenient. This time he almost caught a wing feather on the flame as Bette lit shammas on her first menorah of her adult life. He changed into a green boy and tumbled into the room, and Bette lifted the menorah to avoid it tumbling with him.

“You never asked.”

“You always celebrated Christmas with us! I've never even seen you spin a dreidel.”

Bette wondered if he expected her to pull out a dreidel to spin it on her own in the middle of a Titans meeting.

“Well,” she said to him, “I'm also Jewish on my dad's side. And that means for the next week you get to eat delicious fried food. Deal with it.”

“Oooh, potato pancakes.” Gar was instantly distracted by the frying pan in Bette's hand, and the pile of fried potatoes slowly growing on the kitchen counter. She resisted the sudden urge to slap his hand away and let him help himself as she spooned out the next batch. She even picked up the bowl of apple sauce and handed it to him meaningfully.

“So how come,” he continued, “I've never seen you do this before? I know we've not been roomies that long, but we were Titans together.”

 _Titans together_ made her grin brightly at him until he realized what he had said and grinned back disarmingly.

“Well, we didn't celebrate many of the holidays at home,” Bette explained. “All my West Coast family are Christian. Dad's side of the family live in Gotham. Now I'm living on my own, I thought it was time to make my own traditions.”

“Gotham. That's your Aunt Cathy, right?”

Aunt Cathy, the new wife of Uncle Jake, heiress of a fortune that made Bette's parents look poor, and provider of funds for such recent causes as posting bail for wrongfully arrested young shapeshifters. Of course Gar thought of her first.

“Yeah,” Bette said, taking a break from latke cooking in order to join Gar in spreading apple sauce and eating them. “Aunt Cathy and Uncle Jake. And my cousin Kate. Jake's a colonel in the army, Kate was going to follow him, but she was kicked out for being gay.”

“No kidding?” Gar's eyes widened, his latkes forgotten in the excitement of listening to her. “That's awful.”

Bette pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Yeah, it's pretty bad.”

She hadn't spoken to Kate much since the discharge, but when she did, she came away with the strong impression that Kate really wasn't in a good place right now. Every attempt of Bette's to talk about it, was shut down hard.

If she let herself think about it, Bette was actually very worried about how Kate was doing.

Gar let the subject drop and turned his attention to latkes instead, not saying a word until Bette began to get suspicious of his silence.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said quickly, then looked away, rubbing the back of his neck. “Actually... we need to talk.”

Ignoring the cold sinking feeling in her stomach, Bette tried to keep her voice light. “This sounds ominous.”

Gar couldn't quite make eye contact. “Nightwing called me.”

All Bette could manage was a weak, “oh.” Nightwing, who used to be Robin, was the reason she was in this business, the reason she was a superhero at all, let alone a Teen Titan. It was embarrassing now, how overeager and probably creepy she had been at the time. What hurt worse was how uncomfortable Nightwing remained even after all those years.

“You're going back to the team, aren't you?”

“Listen, Bette,” Gar said quickly, but she interrupted with a quick, easygoing smile.

“It's alright, Gar. We both know Titans West isn't really happening. And you belong on the Titans. Go on, Beast Boy, be awesome.”

Gar grinned quickly. “I want you to come with me, Bette. I'll talk to the team.”

“That would be awesome,” she said. “But you should go anyway, even if they don't want me. Got that?”

“Got it.”

They grinned at each other, despite the awkward, which was thankfully dissipated when the front door opened and Matt came in. He paused there, taking in the menorah and his cousin and roommate standing at the kitchen counter eating latkes.

“I didn't know you were Jewish,” he said.

**Sixth Candle**

Bette's Aunt Cathy didn't really understand the point of gelt.

“Oh my god,” Bette said for like the fifth time, brandishing the box in her hand to show Uncle Jake as he walked into the hall. “Look at this bracelet.”

Cathy was glowing in pride as she took the bracelet away from Jake and fastened it around Bette's wrist. “It's just a little thing I thought you might like. You really have the coloring for gold.”

Bette could feel herself flushing. Her parents were well off, but they definitely not call something with this many carats, including gold and rubies, a 'little thing.' She looked to Jake for help, but he just smiled.

“It's good to see you, Bette,” he said. “Are you staying for long?”

“Just the evening,” she said.

“Just long enough to get laundry done, right?” Cathy said lightly. Bette glanced at her to see if she was kidding, and decided that yes, she probably was. If she didn't like Bette, she wouldn't be buying her jewelry like this.

“Actually,” Bette said, fully aware that she had dropped her laundry downstairs with Cathy's maid, “I came over to borrow this.”

This was sitting on the table where Bette had just set it down to receive the gift: an electric menorah with a power cable. Jake had it left over from the days of moving from base to base. Not everywhere was the best environment for candles.

“No naked flames in the dorms. It's a thing. I know I should have thought ahead, but I didn't think it would be a problem until someone was threatened with eviction yesterday. Yankee Candles ruing the fun for everyone.”

New life, new traditions. Bette didn't think twenty-two was too old to be giving college a real go: she was more likely to learn things now that she was legally a mature adult. Even if she didn't feel like it yet. Flamebird was on ice, if not retired completely. It was time to be with her Uncle and Aunt and her favorite cousin Kate. If they weren't going to be a good influence on her, no one was.

“I said you wouldn't mind, sweetheart,” Cathy said, dropping a kiss on Jake's cheek. “You don't use that one: it took us half an hour to dig it out of storage.”

“Mind?” Uncle Jake said, looking from Cathy to Bette. “Of course I mind, Bette. You're not taking that anywhere.”

“But...”

“No,” he said firmly. “You're coming with me to the penthouse. Kate would love to see you, I know.”

Bette had no idea what to say to that, except to hug him tightly and follow him right out of the door. She couldn't think of a way she'd rather spend the evening.

**Seventh Candle**

Bette didn't know what happened between Kate and Jake. She asked each of them once and was shut down quickly each time, so she didn't try again. Her second Hanukkah in Gotham was probably not going to be the tight family affair she planned it to be; she was sure she had a standing invitation to Cathy and Jake's, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to take it.

The sun was already long down on the East Coast when Bette's roommate left and she set her electric menorah in the window. After a few long seconds of consideration she pulled out her cell phone and dialed her father.

“ _Bette?_ ” He sounded surprised to hear from her.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, sitting heavily down on the bed. “How's it going?”

He paused for the tiniest of beats; then he said, “ _Bette, your mother said you didn't want us to come over. But if you want to change your mind, just say...”_

“No!” Bette interjected. “No, god, Dad I'm okay, I swear.”

He was silent for a second. “ _I know you do this all the time, but..._ ”

“Wait,” she said. “You know?”

She had spent a kind of traumatic evening the night before being kidnapped and threatened with having her ears sliced off by Gotham's most recent psycho _du jour._ In the end she had been rescued by Batwoman, and spent a much less interesting morning giving a statement to the nice police captain Kate had danced with at a party a while back. It might be Gotham, but it wasn't the kind of thing that happened to girls her age all the time.

Not unless they were the kind of girls who were also ex-teenage superheroes.

Her dad sounded like he was smiling. “ _Sweetheart, you didn't think it was a secret, did you? What did you think we thought you were doing with your allowance?_ ”

“I dunno,” Bette managed.

“ _We didn't pay for the most complete health insurance coverage we could find in case you got a tennis injury._ ” There was something else in her voice. Something she heard after every tennis final. He was proud of her.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you.”

“ _Nonsense. That's how the superhero gig works, isn't it?_ ”

“You don't mind?”

“ _Not in the least. Well, not anymore anyway. I won't say I didn't worry about you, but, as your Mom always said, at least you weren't chasing the wrong kind of boys._ ”

“You're both weird.”

“ _Of course we are. Now, not that it's not great to hear from you, but was there a reason for the call?_ ”

Bette lay back on her bed, thinking. She was pleased that her dad was proud, and she knew she had her life on track now. She was college, in Gotham, and didn't have the slightest inclination to start stalking Nightwing. And now there was the whole Batwoman thing to think about.

She decided to talk to Kate the next day. Right now, she had her dad.

“I was wondering if you'd lit the menorah yet.”

**Eighth Candle**

Bette is half-lying in a reclining chair, in front of a roaring fire with a laptop table reaching over her chest, on which she is fiercely churning out the last few hundred words of one of her last final papers of the semester.

She is rushing to meet deadlines not because she's procrastinated this semester, which she actually has not, but because she took six classes this semester as part of her goal to catch up on the semester she lost last year. She's been told by many professors, even her adviser, that she shouldn't feel obliged to rush to catch up, and to take her time getting back into the swing of college. These are people who don't understand what Bette Kane is capable of when she sets her mind to it. It is a point of pride that she will get this degree on time, just like she got her tennis trophies and her pageant crowns and her Titans membership. While she's been physically compelled to spend a lot of time sitting or lying still, Bette figured it was the perfect time to get schoolwork done.

She is in the opulent surroundings of her Aunt Cathy's out-of-town mansion because this is where she's living right now. Dorm life led to her abduction last year, but it was spending all that time in a coma that really put the nail in the coffin of her room sharing, paying for laundry, never having clean dishes experience. She's been living with Uncle Jake and Aunt Cathy since being discharged from hospital because not a single adult in her life will hear of anything else.

She is in the position she's in because it's the most comfortable way she's found of spending long periods of time reading and typing up essays without putting too much strain on her core muscles. Her abdominal wall has nearly completely healed, but the pain can still nag at her if she holds one position for too long. Bette can walk, run, stand, sit, lie down, and even shift between all of these positions without showing any discomfort, but she's still prone to feeling it.

Kate would be fully healed by now.

Kate would probably be out in uniform again by now, and not using “overcome with classwork” as an excuse.

Who is Bette kidding? Kate would never have let herself be eviscerated by that hook guy in the first place.

It has, Bette thinks, as she hits SEND and submits her penultimate final paper to her professor, been one hell of a year.

“Bette?”

Aunt Cathy appears in the doorway with a tray of delicious-smelling sugar cookies. Seeing Bette close her laptop, she continues in and puts the plate down on the coffee table in such a place that Bette has to unfold herself and lean forward to get one. It hurts, but Bette is pretty sure she mastered the art of not letting anyone know she's in pain a long time ago. Cathy, for all her virtues, has been the easiest of anyone to convince that Bette suffers from nothing worse than occasionally oversleeping.

“Hey, Phenom,” says Cathy, “how goes the paper?”

“Finished,” Bette says cheerfully. “Just the one more to go,and that just needs two more pages done by tomorrow.”

“I'm glad to hear it. So, will you be joining us in the living room? There's somebody who wants to see you?”

“Kate?” Bette rolls out of her chair so fast she doesn't have time to hide the flinch it causes her, and for a second she thinks that's what caused a flicker of a frown to cross Cathy's face.

“No...” Cathy says to Bette's retreating back, but she's already on her way to the main living room despite the protests from her weak abs.

Sitting in one of Cathy's handcrafted armchairs is Bette's mom, who puts down her glass of Merlot as soon as she sees her daughter and holds out her arms for Bette to rush into them. Her dad has been talking to Uncle Jake by the window, and he comes over to hug Bette as soon as her mom is finished with her.

“When did you two arrive?” Bette asks, perching on the arm of her mom's chair despite the wrinkle it produces in Cathy's perfectly brought up forehead when she does so.

“Half an hour ago,” Dad says. “Jake said you were in the middle of finals rush so we thought we'd let you get that out of the way first.”

“You could have told me,” Bette points out, incapable of complaining in her happiness at seeing them. “I could have said hi.”

Mom wraps an arm around her hips and squeezes. Bette doesn't flinch.

“We know what you're like when you have a target. We couldn't interrupt that.” Mom sounds so like herself that Bette feels a pang. She realizes suddenly how much she misses her parents on this side of the country, even if she'd never realize she would.

Mom continues: “Jake says you've been healing faster than the doctors have ever seen before, and really beating your PT into submission. You're not overdoing it, are you?”

Jake and Dad both grin at each other.

“Kane women don't understand the definition of overdoing it,” Dad says, which makes all the Kane women in the room smile too.

They talk about Bette's recovery for a few minutes, before the much more interesting topic arises of Bette's schoolwork, then Bette's lack of a social life, then Bette's tennis racket which her parents brought with them. There are two topics that don't get brought up at all.

Bette lights the menorah with nearly all of her family standing around her, her Mom's hands on her shoulders like she's four again. There's more wine, and the conversation becomes less Bette and more Cathy, with some Mom. Only once does Bette look at Uncle Jake and see that in that moment he's thinking the same thing she is thinking: that there's someone missing.

By the time Bette goes to bed, it feels much later than it is. Seeing her parents and spending the evening has been fun, but exhausting in a way that surprises her. She's already into her pajamas before her eye is caught by the movement of her drapes billowing out in the wind. Her window is open, and it's much too cold for Bette to have left it that way. She frowns into the darkness outside as she pulls it closed and fastens the latch.

When she turns to her bedroom, she sees it: a bag of chocolate coins sitting on her dresser. She turns back to the window, but the night is as empty as she left it.

“Happy Hanukkah to you, too,” she says.


End file.
